20VC: Index's Shardul Shah on Why Market Size is a Trap | Biggest Lessons on Pricing from Leading Rounds in Wiz & Datadog | Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | How Index Makes Decisions and Why Growth & Early are the Same Investing Style
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 09/16/2024
20Sales: Rippling's CRO on Why Founders Should Not Create Sales Playbooks | Why Discounting is BS and How to Create Urgency in Deals | The Biggest Lessons on Pricing and How to Win the Pricing Game with Matt Plank
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Matt Plank is Rippling's Chief Revenue Officer where he oversees all Sales and Account Management functions in the US and Internationally. Matt joined Rippling in the very early days when Parker Conrad (founder) was building V1 in a basement with $0 in revenue. Today the company is a market leader with 100s of $Ms in ARR. Prior to Rippling, Matt was a Sales Director @ Zenefits where he helped the company scale to $70M in ARR. In Today’s Show with Matt Plank We Discuss: 08:25 Challenges and Strategies in Outbound Sales 10:29 Building Effective Sales and Marketing Partnerships...
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20VC: UiPath's Daniel Dines on Why Agents Do Not Mean RPA is F***** | Why We Have Reached the Upper End of Scaling Laws | The Future of Work in an Agent World and What Everyone Misunderstands About Enterprise AI
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Daniel Dines is the Founder & CEO @ , one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from , Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue. In Today’s Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss: 1. The Future of LLMs: Why does Daniel believe that we are at the upper end of scaling laws and more compute will not lead to...
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20VC: Reid Hoffman on The Trump Administration | Elon Musk and DOGE | The US Defence Budget, NATO and The War in Ukraine | China, Tariffs and TikTok | The Future of Chips, Nuclear Energy, Quantum Computing and Climate
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Reid Hoffman is one of the most impactful people in technology and startups. As a Founder he founded Paypal and Linkedin before moving to the investing side where he has led deals in Facebook, Airbnb and more. In Today’s Episode with Reid Hoffman We Discuss: 1. China and Tariffs: Should the US ban Tiktok and other Chinese companies, given China banning US companies presence in their country? How does Reid evaluate the rise of the Chinese car industry? What are his concerns? How does Reid hope Trump uses tariffs to advantage the US position? What is Reid concerned about what...
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20Growth: How to Scale to $30M ARR Bootstrapped through Content and Brand | The Ultimate Equation to Success in Sales and Why Most Founders Suck at Sales | Why You Should Overpay People and What That Means with Guillaume Moubeche @ Lempire
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Guillaume Moubeche is the Founder of Lempire, a company he has bootstrapped in the most competitive market in technology and scaled to a staggering $30M in ARR. Guillaume has never raised primary funding for the business but sold $10M of secondary at a $150M valuation. Guillaume is also an angel investor and and best selling author. In Today’s Episode with Guillaume Moubeche: 1. How to Build a Sales Machine: What is the biggest mistake founders make when crafting their ideal customer profile? What are Guillaume’s biggest lessons in scaling from $0-$1M in ARR? Why are most...
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20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Torsten Reil is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Helsing, a new type of defence company providing artificial intelligence to protect our democracies. Torsten has raised over $825M from the likes of Prima Materia, Elad Gil, Accel and General Catalyst. Previously Torsten founded NaturalMotion, one of the UK's most successful games and technology start-ups. Torsten was named as one of MIT's Top 100 Innovators and is a member of the Munich Security Conference Innovation Board. In Today’s Episode with Torsten Reil We Discuss: 1. The World Around Us: China, Russia and Trump: What will happen between...
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20VC: Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff on The Future of LLMs | The Future of Agents | The Future of Labour | Management Lessons from Steve Jobs
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Marc Benioff is one of the iconic founders and visionaries of our time. From the founding of Salesforce 25 years ago, Marc has in many ways created an entire industry. He has scaled the company to a market cap of $346BN, $38BN in revenue and over 72,000 employees. Ask Me Anything with Marc Benioff: The Future of Models: Why does Marc believe we are at the upper end of LLMs and they are commoditising? Why does Marc believe the future of models is many smaller, verticalised models specialised in different areas? OpenAI vs Anthropic vs Xai. Which would Marc buy and which would...
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20VC: From Unsexy Startup to $1.8BN Acquisition | Why VCs and Founders are Fundamentally Misaligned | Why Valuations and Fundraising are BS | Lessons from Josh Kushner and Marc Andreesen | Zac Bookman, OpenGov
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Zachary Bookman is Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, the GovTech cloud software leader that was acquired for a staggering $1.8BN earlier this year. Prior to acquisition, Zac raised over $180M from some of the best of the best including Marc Andreesen, Josh Kushner, Joe Lonsdale and Founder Collective to name a few. Zac is also a successful angel investor with investments in Flexport, Flock Safety and Addepar. In Today’s Show with Zac Bookman We Discuss: 04:27 Navigating Enterprise Sales and Pricing Strategies 07:49 The Importance of High Gross Retention in SaaS 11:03 Investor...
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20VC: Revolut Founder Nik Storonsky on When and Where Revolut Will IPO & What Revolut Need to Do to Hit $100BN Valuation
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Nik Storonsky is the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world with a $45BN valuation and 50M customers around the world. In July 2024, Revolut posted a whopping $2.2BN in revenue with $545M in pre-tax profit in 2023. To date, Nik has raised $1.8BN for the company from the likes of Index, Balderton, Ribbit, DST and TCV. In Today’s Show with Nik Storonsky We Discuss: 1. When & Where Will Revolut IPO: What does Revolut need to do or change before they are ready to go public? When would Nik like for Revolut to go public? When they do go...
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20VC: Grindr: The Most Insane Story in Startups | How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr | The Successful IPO with $300M Revenues and 40% EBITDA Margins | How Grindr Built a Free Cash Flow Machine
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
George Arison is the CEO of Grindr. The app that results in 40% of lesbian and gay marriages, the average user uses the app for 1 hour per day and sends more messages on Grindr than they do Whatsapp. The company will do over $300M in revenue in 2024 with a 40% EBITDA margin. One of the insane public company success stories. Prior to Grindr, George was the Founder and CEO of Shift, which he took public in 2020. In Today’s Episode with George Arison We Discuss: 1. Wild Story of How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr: How did the Chinese come to buy Grindr and then fire the founder? ...
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20Product: Is an AI Winter Approaching | The Future of AI Software Development: What is Real & What is BS | OpenAI: WTF is Going on & How Far Into Application Layer Do They Go | The Future Role of Software Engineers with Guy Podjarny
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Guy Podjarny founded Tessl, Snyk and Blaze. Tessl is reimagining software development for the AI era and shaping AI Native Development. Snyk created and leads the Developer Security category, and is now a multi-billion dollar company with over 1,000 employees. Guy was previously CTO at Akamai (following its acquisition of Blaze), is an active angel investor, and co-hosts of the AI Native Dev podcast. In Today’s Episode with Guy Podjarny We Discuss: 03:02 Discussion on NVIDIA's Market Position 04:14 Will We See a Trough of Disillusionment in AI 07:36 The Future of AI Development and...
info_outlineShardul Shah is a Partner at Index Ventures and one of the greatest cyber security investors of the last two decades. Among his many wins, Shardul has led rounds in Datadog, Wiz, Duo Security, Coalition and more. Shardul is also the only Partner investing at Index to have worked in every single Index office from London, to SF, to NYC to Geneva. Prior to Index, Shardul worked with Summit Partners, focusing on healthcare and internet technologies.
In Today's Episode with Shardul Shah We Discuss:
1. Investing Lessons from Wiz and Datadog:
- Why does Shardul believe that TAM (total addressable market) is BS?
- Why does Shardul believe that every great deal will be expensive?
- How does Shardul evaluate when to double down and concentrate capital vs when to let someone else come in and lead a round in an existing company?
- How does Shardul think about when is the right time to sell a position in a company?
2. How the Best VCs Make Decisions:
- How does Shardul and Index create an environment of truth-seeking together, that is optimised for the best decision-making to take place?
- What are the biggest mistakes in how VCs make decisions today?
- Why does Shardul believe that all first meetings should be 30 mins not 60 mins?
- Why does Shardul believe it is so much harder to make investment decisions when partnerships are remote? What is better remote?
3. The Core Pillars of Venture: Sourcing, Selecting, Securing and Servicing:
- Which one does Shardul believe he is best at? What is he worst at?
- Does Shardul believe with the downturn we have moved into a world of selection and not just winning every new deal?
- Does Shardul believe that VCs provide any value? What are the biggest misnomers when it comes to "VC value add"?
4. Lessons from the Best Investors in the World:
- Who is the best board member that Shardul sits on a board with?
- What has Shardul learned from Gili Raanan and Doug Leone on being a good board member?
- What have been some of Shardul's biggest investing lessons from Danny Rimer?
- Why does Shardul hate benchmarks when it comes to investing?